Taylor Prewitt

“ I know about proud men in politics. I know about Plantagenet Palliser. Perhaps one of the most telling portraits is that painted by his wife as she tells her friend Mrs. Finn that if he should hear treason being plotted against him, he would stop up his ears with his fingers. "He is all trust, even when he knows that he is being deceived. He is honor complete from head to foot." ”

“ The way we live now is portrayed not as a society that is sold a bill of goods by a huckster, but as one that carried the huckster out over his head even further than he might have ventured on his own. ”

“ Lest the reader miss the irony, Trollope spells it out in telling the reader that in his heart of hearts the Duke kept his own family and his own self entirely apart from his grand theories. "That one and the same man should have been in one part of himself so unlike the other part,—that he should have one set of opinions so contrary to another set,—poor Isabel Boncassen did not understand." ”

“ We are introduced to Miss Mackenzie as a Cinderella-type woman (Trollope had a weakness for Cinderellas) who devotes herself to the care of her brother for fifteen years until he dies. She is a generous but self-abasing humble woman, but we see that she can stand up for herself. Finally she appears to gain some conception of her own worth.
There has been some money in the family, but we see it slipping away due to unfortunate business decisions, and none of it appears to be destined for poor Margaret, who has little to show for the years of her young womanhood. ”

“ The motif of the dark waters of the Moldau dominates all others. Nina herself is the brightest spot, forthright and assertive in her love for Anton. Like many Trollope heroines, she is not the most beautiful girl in her story; her rival Rebecca Loth is admitted even by Nina's cousin and suitor, Ziska Zamenoy, to be more striking and beautiful. Yet Nina continues to attract Ziska and Anton even in poverty that is almost starvation. ”

“ He gives up his idea of being a clergyman; he decides to study law. He proposes, and she accepts. He presses for an early wedding date; she demurs, saying that they must wait until he has been called to the bar, which will take two or three years. She is afraid that a small income would fray their love for each other. Neither will compromise. The engagement is broken, and she marries his friend, a rising star in the legal and political world.
Behind all this is the possible legacy of his rich uncle. George, however, refuses to humor his uncle for the sake of becoming his heir. ”

“ She told herself that sooner or later her aunt would conquer her, that sooner or later that mean-faced old man, with his snuffy fingers, and his few straggling hairs brushed over his bald pate, with his big shoes spreading here and there because of his corns, and his ugly, loose, square, snuffy coat, and his old hat which he had worn so long that she never liked to touch it, would become her husband, and that it would be her duty to look after his wine, and his old shoes, and his old hat, and to have her own little possessions doled out to her by his penuriousness. ”

“ I grew up listening to my father and grandfather discuss the preachers of the Little Rock Conference of the Methodist Church—their gifts and their shortcomings, their ambitions, their foibles. "Preachers are the most jealous profession there is," Dad explained to me. Several I knew only by name; several I came to know when they came to town and had dinner at our house. Not knowing about Anthony Trollope's novels, I couldn't look up anything they talked about in any book. It was apparent that church politics and the variety of clerical personalities would be a fertile field for the novelist. ”

“ When I am taking a walk through the fields and get one of my feet deeper than usual into the mud, I always endeavour to bear it as well as I may before the eyes of those who meet me rather than make futile efforts to get rid of the dirt and look as though nothing had happened. The dirt, when it is rubbed and smudged and scraped, is more palpably dirt than the honest mud. ”

“ Phineas (as he was known to many of his acquaintances even under the formal conventions of Victorian England) is no more heroic in the second novel than in the first. Would these two novels rank higher in our consciousness if the protagonist had been less flawed? Perhaps. But Phineas's penchant for muddling through without much in the way of strength or resolution is essential to the story. And even though the reader may lose patience with Phineas at times, his foibles and fallibility provide the necessary pinch of charm to this story of political gamesmanship and matrimonial maneuvering. ”

“ What else can one say after finishing a book in which the heroine, a poor girl of illegitimate birth but "the sweetest girl in the world," is changed at a stroke (although long anticipated) into the wealthiest heiress in the county, gaining the blessings of her lover's mother, Lady Arabella, for her marriage to the most eligible young bachelor in Barsetshire? So much for the plot. Trollope cared little, in general, for maintaining the reader's suspense and usually revealed in advance how it would turn out. ”

“ But though women often outshine and outperform the men in their lives, they suffer the restrictions of Victorian society. Living in a later age in which women have won the right to assert themselves more successfully, the differences between men and women still provide the basis for novels, short stories, and drama. Today a woman may knock on the door of a man who does not return her text messages, but men may still be boys while the girls in their lives are women. No Victorian woman novelist knew this better than Anthony Trollope, who described the world as he found it ”

“ Mary keeps her own counsel, but Ralph "not the heir" falls seriously in love with her. Patience may have had some preference of her own but not the looks to express or pursue it.
This tangle of alliances and preferences is a bit like a murder mystery: can the reader guess who will wind up with whom? And in truth, the novel basically stands on its plot. Trollope is sufficiently realistic to show that Ralph never really reforms. One of the most interesting women is Polly Neefit, who is urged by her father the breeches-maker to accept Ralph the heir, after Ralph is persuaded by him to propose. ”

“ It's one thing for a writer to have the requisite skills; it's another thing—whether by chance or design—to hit upon a subject or a character that will "take off." Writers are sometimes surprised by what the public likes and what it doesn't. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle looked upon Sherlock Holmes as a distraction from his higher calling as a writer of historical novels, until he realized that Holmes was his meal ticket. Few readers know anything about his historical novels. And for Trollope, the worlds of Barchester Towers and the Pallisers secured his place in English literature. ”

“ The woman in the story who is encumbered by devotion to a lover is Florence Mountjoy, who has fallen in love with Harry Annesley and has pledged herself to him by a nod of her head. "A man's heart can be changed, but not a woman's. His love is but one thing among many," she declares to Mountjoy Scarborough in declining his repeated proposal, affirming the doctrine to which so many of Trollope's heroines adhered. ”

“ Is there a classification for Lady Glencora Palliser, who dominates the society of the Palliser novels, even after her death, and for Mrs. Proudie, who also exerts the power of her personality throughout the Barsetshire series? I prefer to think of these women as Unclassified. And a list of memorable Trollope women must include a few who appeared in only one novel—Dorothy ("Dolly") Grey, daughter of the attorney Mr. Grey in Mr. Scarborough's Family, Lizzie Eustace of The Eustace Diamonds, and Lady Mary Mason of Orley Farm. ”

“ But he turns out to be Miss Mackenzie's hero, barely making the cut. He has a house full of children of his own, and though a barrister by profession, he hardly practices law. He is the Victorian equivalent of a day trader, going to town every day to follow the market prices and manage his investments, which seem to yield him barely enough to feed his family. He discusses his investments with his mother every night. When he proposes to Margaret, neither she nor the reader is sure whether it is for love or for money, but whatever, she accepts.
And then Trollope pulls a rabbit out of the hat. ”

“ Providing some relief from Ayala's quest for her angel are the subplots that constitute the comedy of manners in which Trollope excels. These little subplots are so entertaining, why bother with a serious major plot? It takes an uncommonly skillful genius to satisfy the reader with nothing but pies and cakes. Barchester Towers, one of the earlier Trollope novels, came close; it contains only enough serious plot to serve as a scaffolding for the satire of the clerical community of Barchester. ”

“ Several plots rely on a woman's determination to remain true, no matter what, to a man whom she once agreed to marry—most notoriously in the case of Lily Dale, in The Small House at Allington. Forsaken by a handsome rake who subsequently makes a more advantageous marriage, Lily considers herself consigned to spinsterhood, refusing to consider any other suitor, particularly the devoted Johnny Eames. Occasionally these self-sacrificing women can be persuaded to get a life for themselves, but it's never easy and often impossible. ”

“ One would be hard pressed to say that The Way We Live Now heralded a precipitous darkening of Trollope's view of the world. He did continue to explore the folly of mankind in the novels that followed—The Prime Minister, with the appearance of Ferdinand Lopez, an ambitious, unscrupulous foreigner like Melmotte; Is He Popenjoy? featuring the arch villain the Marquis of Brotherton; The American Senator; The Duke's Children; and John Caldigate. The more Trollope experienced the world, the more targets for his satirical pen appeared.
The Way We Live Now is replete with such targets. ”

“ Margaret shakes off three suitors, unworthy souls who merit rejection, though she is so lacking in self-confidence that she gives serious consideration to two of them. Mr. Maguire—the clergyman with the wandering squinting eye—catches her by surprise with his proposal, and she asks for two weeks to think it over. A big mistake—it raises false hopes in Mr. Maguire. She is called away because of her brother's illness before giving the ambitious curate an answer, and she enters the orbit of her cousin John Ball, a widower who had bored her by talking about nothing but money. ”

“ She could flee abroad, as Lady Laura Standish did with her father, to escape her crazed husband, in Trollope's Phineas Finn. She could (if the husband would permit it) live openly with her lover, as did George Eliot. But just as Hollywood movies follow an apparently tacit code of audience acceptability, so Trollope was unwilling to send his central figures to Europe to live together, as Glencora Palliser had contemplated doing with her lover Burgo Fitzgerald in Can You Forgive Her? ”

“ The unscrupulous Earl Lovel has married a commoner, but shortly after the marriage he informs her that he has previously married a woman in Italy, and that their marriage is not valid. This means that she is not his Countess, and their unborn child will not be legitimate. Needless to say, she does not take this well, and she spends the rest of her life fighting for her title and for that of her daughter. In almost fairy tale fashion, an humble tailor helps her in her struggle, providing encouragement and significant loans of money. ”

“ Mary Flood Jones Finn is missing, her early death having freed Phineas to return to London as a widower and resume his career and his old friendships—especially those with women. The page brightens whenever the Duchess of Omnium or Madame Max Goesler appear.
Why are these women so delightful? Bright, irreverent, saucy, the Duchess uses her lofty position in society as a springboard for making things happen. She appears and reappears in several novels in the Palliser series, sometimes as the prime mover and always as a breath of fresh air. ”

“ Saying "sir", is an institution. Teaching all the children mathematics is an institution. Plenty of food is an institution. Getting drunk is an institution in a great many towns. Lecturing is an institution. There are plenty of them, and some are very good—but you wouldn't like it."
Mr. Trollope must have had some unpleasant experiences with one or more American women who served as his model for Caroline Spalding's friend Wallachia Petrie, "the Republican Browning," a "poetess" and a feminist and an outspoken opponent of "European" ways. ”

“ Among the curious features of genius is its uneven nature. After searching unsuccessfully for his métier with a few novels about Ireland, a historical novel of the French Revolution, and a play, Trollope found his way with The Warden and Barchester Towers, which may be his best known and most loved works. ”

“ The interior is so dark he at first cannot tell whether anyone is at home. The floor is sod, the walls are bare, and there is only a very little furniture, very plain. As his eyes become accustomed to the dark, he sees a woman sitting cross-legged on the floor with a baby in her arms. ”

“ Anthony Trollope's two sisters and two of his three brothers died at a young age with consumption, an "established sorrow" described in his autobiography as the horrid word, Consumption. With this experience, it is no surprise that Trollope should write a novel, Marion Fay, about a young woman with consumption. The wonder is that it took him so long to write it; it was more than thirty years after his first novel that he wrote Marion Fay, which was finished in 1879.
Marion Fay's story is a sad one. A Quaker's daughter and the eldest son of a marquis meet and fall in love with each other. ”

“ We follow the fates of a large cast of characters. Perhaps we don't see that much into the soul of Melmotte. His actions and words speak for him. For once, Trollope doesn't take us into the head of a character who plays such a pivotal role. ”

“ Trollope is a chatty author. Had he been as reticent as twentieth century practitioners of minimalist fiction, we might not have had spelled out for our curiosity a definition of a gentleman, a recurrent source of fascination for Trollope. Miss Marrable is the author's agent who ponders the matter, concluding that money does not entitle a millionaire to be considered a gentleman. Attorneys don't make the cut by virtue of their profession. A son of a gentleman, however, could maintain his rank by earning his living as a clergyman, a barrister, a soldier, or a sailor. ”

“ Caroline Waddington in The Bertrams suffers the powerless state of a married woman before the appearance in England of rather modest reforms.
Trollope's insight and skill in presenting women was such that the faithful reader is tempted to sort them into bins—not an unfair analysis of a writer who was so workmanlike in his approach to his craft that he wrote regularly and prolifically. Some of his women appear as rather one-dimensional role players, even though they may be designated as "heroines"; others are developed in such depth that the reader feels that he knows them as long-time friends. ”

“ Frankly in love with Silverbridge, her disadvantage is one not readily appreciated on this side of the Atlantic: she is American. As Lady Mabel is revealed in the above passage, so we see Isabel as she walks with Silverbridge among the old graves at Matching and hears him tell her how Sir Guy ran away with half a dozen heiresses.
"Nobody should have run away with me. I have no idea of going on such a journey except on terms of equality,—just step and step alike." Then she took hold of his arm and put out one foot. "Are you ready?"
The action of the story is all carried out by the young people. ”

“ To attempt to place a value on Orley Farm: it is good enough to be fairly compared to Bleak House, generally regarded as one of Dicken's masterpieces, and one that has been successfully presented as a television series. Nothing in Orley Farm matches the opening paragraphs of Bleak House, in which the description of the rain and mud of London sends us to turn up the heat, even if the room is warm. Dickens manages the pace of Bleak House very well, with the tempo galloping toward a conclusion in the last hundred pages or so. But Lady Mason is a more interesting woman than Lady Dedlock. ”

“ He doesn't match the villainy of Joseph Emilius, the preacher who only had a "slight defect in his left eye" and a "hooky nose," and who murdered Lizzie Eustace's protector Mr. Bonteen in The Eustace Diamonds; it is apparent, however, that not all Trollope's clergymen went to heaven.
But back to Miss Mackenzie: if one of the great pleasures in life is watching someone start out with a pleasant set of gifts and then develop a few more to become a joyous credit to the human race, then the literary proxy is reading about such a one. ”

“ A young Earl Lovel appears, heir to the title and perhaps to the late Earl's wealth; whatever had happened in Italy is a great mystery, and the lawyers for the Countess and for the Lovel family fail to find any evidence that they consider strong enough to convince an English jury that an Italian woman should hold an English title. Facing a lengthy dispute, the lawyers for both sides of the family decide among themselves (!) that a compromise should be reached, and that it could best be accomplished by a marriage between the two sides of the family: the young Earl and Lady Anna. ”

“ Frank Gresham receives a lesson in this from his father when he suggests that since his proposed marriage to a penniless woman would destroy his chance for a large estate, perhaps he could settle for a relatively small farm. Preoccupied with the ruin to the family that will result from this injudicious marriage, his father—also preoccupied with the reflection that it was his own squandering of the family fortune that has led his son to the consideration of working for a living—can hardly bring himself to think of it. ”

“ An express train at full speed is grander to you than a mountain with heaps of snow. I own that to me there is something glorious in the dignity of a man too high to do anything,—if only he knows how to carry that dignity with a proper grace. ”